


may the bridges i have burned light my way back home

by butiamhome



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 04:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5403815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butiamhome/pseuds/butiamhome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well. That certainly didn’t go the way he’d dreamt it.</p>
<p>A brief look inside Parse's head & memories after Parse 3. Somewhat of a character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	may the bridges i have burned light my way back home

Kent keeps the cool exterior till he’s out of the Uber, out of the (impressively large) hotel lobby, and firmly, privately in his (impressively large) hotel room, far away from whatever the hell just happened with Zimms.

(Jack, he corrects himself. Jack.)

He sits on the edge of the bed, buries his face in his hands, and lets the mask fall.

Well. That certainly didn’t go the way he’d dreamt it.

 

When Kent Parson was seventeen, he had it all: hockey, a best friend he was in love with, and a future of ruling the ice with him. Kenny and Zimms were the dream team, the guys you could count on for good hockey and great fun at parties, the best pair the hockey world had ever seen.

In Kent’s mind, he could read Jack like a book, picking up on tiny quirks of his body language that their teammates and fans never could have known. There was very little he could get past Jack, too, and when they moved, they moved together, on the ice or—elsewhere. Neither of them was transparent, but he thought they were pretty clear to each other.

He built his whole world around this, a little universe of hockey and Jack and Jack’s mouth on his, and he thought he could keep it sacred and safe and his own.

Then he got the phone call, and a tether inside him snapped, and it was like he couldn’t feel Jack on the other end anymore. It was like a sick joke, a bad dream he couldn’t shake himself out of. This was not his Jack—this was nothing like the boy he knew, reserved in public but full of life with Kent’s hands on him behind closed doors.

(Kent’s hands on the steering wheel, Kent’s mouth moving to ask where to go, his hands, again, twisting his cap back and forth in the waiting room. )

Jack wouldn’t see him for two days, and when he did, he wouldn’t answer any of Kent’s questions—why would you do this, why didn’t you say something, what does this mean for us?

For Kent, it meant going first in the draft and leaving Jack behind to go to Vegas, and he’s regretted it almost every day since. It meant, no matter how hard he tried to keep it up on his end, Kenny and Zimms were done.

He had everything he’d ever wanted except for Jack by his side, and it was fucking empty. Eighteen and all alone, so far from the other side of seventeen where he had a best friend and was in love and happy. He thought he could have everything all at once, and what a joke that was. How quiet it was at the top of the world.

Fast-forward to earlier tonight. In six years, Kent’s gotten pretty good at the mask, playing the All-American Famous but Chill Hockey Bro, pretending there’s not a hole in his heart where his best friend should be.

He has about four different dreams where he fixes everything, and six where he screws everything up even worse. He’s hoping for the former when he shows up at Jack’s hockey team’s sad excuse for a frat house.

He finds Jack taking selfies of all goddamn things and gets him away from the crowds of star-struck college kids, up to his room where they can actually talk. He lays it all out for Jack, offering him everything they’d ever wanted together, a way to spackle over the six-year-wide hole and keep going like nothing had ever changed.

He kisses him, and with his eyes closed he can pretend he has everything again, Jack by his side on the ice, Jack by his side in his bed, and he thinks for a split second Jack kisses him back—

And Jack pulls away. Jack says no.

(The Jack in Kent’s good dreams, seventeen still picture-perfect, never says no. Kent is not prepared for this.)

He pushes Kent away and Kent watches him steel himself, close himself off all over again.

And Kent knows that’s it. He’s dreamt too big and too much and it’s never going to happen. It hits him all at once, a sucker punch, and he lets out an involuntary puff of air— _Huh_.

His heart’s broken all over again, and he turns ugly.

Maybe if he burns the bridge all the fucking way down, he won’t be able to come back. Maybe he’ll be done once and for all. So he goes for it, says the sharpest, meanest shit he can think of, hoping the blows land on this new Jack as well as they would’ve on his, and goes cold. Flips his hat on, one last zinger, and leaves. He doesn’t look back.

 

Back in his hotel room, Kent’s trying not to cry. He tells himself it’s over: _fuck Jack_ , he says aloud, and he knows—he knows he’s lying to himself the second it passes his lips.

Kent just doesn’t let go of dreams that easily.

**Author's Note:**

> remember when i didn't have all these feelings about kent parson? many thanks to queervengers and misandrywitch for changing all that.


End file.
